The Dickinson press., 1887-08-20
NOVEL USES OF PAPER.
BUILDING OF PAPER BOATS AND
MAKING OF PAPER CAR WHEELS.

OOtG0liN1 VT CHTen UNIV NV
MAKING OF PAPER CAR WHEELS.
An Interesting Process OF Manufacture.
The Real Service of q Paper Car
Wh%ecl-Straw Lumber and Its Uses.
Bags and Boxes.
One of the most remarkable uses of paper
is the building Of paper boats, under the
patent, recently expired, of E. Waters. These
boats are made of an ordinary MANILA paper
of good quality, usually in five thic;nesses, in
all o~ne-sixteenth of all inch thick, except in
parts where there is the reinforcement of one
or two extra strips. The process of making
them is simple. The cost is something above
that OF wood. Not only is travelling by water
indebted to paper, but travelling by land. A
paper car wheel GEMS even more q CONTRA
diction of terms than n paper boat. yet it is
now generally acknowledged to BIO better,
safer and longer lived than one altogether of
metal. 1t was the invention Of Richard II. AL
len, n locomotive engineer, afterward master
mechanic of the Cleveland and Toledo rail-
road, who took for his aim in life the produc-
ton of n better car wheel than those i'll Use.
1t is the body of the wheel only which is of
paper. The material is a calendered rye
straw "boaru" or thick paper made at the
Allen company's mills. This j. sent to the
works i'll circular sheets of twenty-one toforty
inches in diameter. Two men standing by q
pile of these rapidly brush over each sheet an
even coating of -four paste until a dozen are
pasted in a layer. A third MAI transfers
these layers to n hydraulic press, where q
pressure of 500 tons or more is applied to a
pile of them, the layers being kept distinct by
the absence Of paste between the outer sheets.
After solidifying under this pressure for two
hours the twelve sheet layers are kept for q
week in a drying room at l20 degs. Fallren-
heit; several of these layers are in turn pasted
together, pressed and dried for a second week,
and still again these disks are pasted, pressed
and given Il third drying of a whole month.
The result is n circular block, containing from
100 to 100 sheets Of the original paper COM
pressed to five and a half or four and q half
inches thickness, and a solidity, density and
weight suggesting metal rather than fiber.
Tho "paper wheel' is made up of this disk
of compressed paper, surrounded by a steel
tire and fitted with a cast iron hub, which is
bored for the axle; wrought iron plates pro-
tect the paper disk on either side, and all are
bolted together by two circles of bolts, one
set passing through a lange Of the tire, the
other through a nange of the hub, and both
through the paper center and its protecting
plates.
The real service of the paper is in interpos-
ing n non-vibrating substance between the
axle and the tire, so that the vibrations,
which in some unknown way realTange the
atoms of metal so that it brittles md breaks
after long wear, are prevented. Nature
al ,., -. ,,i1 rNr,1 ,,,,,y @f rn~,,s,, %l,;,,~o
out, whether it be man, lest he lag superfu-
GUS on the stage, or "the everlasting hills'
themselves, but in the case of compressed
paper, art seems to have got ahead of nature,
for it seems not to wear out at all. The steel
tires of these wheels do wear down, and are
then returned in n lathe to smaller diameter;
the paper block appears again asgood as new,
and ready for u new tire. The paper wheel
has the one disadvantage Of greater cost, but
its longer life and greater safety are in its
favor.
"Straw lumber" SO called, is similar ap-
plication of paper for building purposes: it is
used, not for posts or beams, but i'll place of
luth and plaster, for sheathing, etc. An ordi-
nary 'straw board; paperis made on the cylin-
der machine-the refuse bedding Of stables
being very largely utilized as tire material
and is run through a vat of resin and other
waterproofing material heated to $50 degs.
I. a number of sheets are then placed to.
gether between metal plates. and subjected
like the car wheels to enormous pressure in q
hydraulic press. The result is a very hard
and solid blackish board, about three-six-
teenths of an inch thick, which can DO cut
with n saw OF chisel, and is marketed in slabs
twelve feet by thirty-two inches, at a price of
about $40 per thousand feet. This is now in
uso also for the interior Of railway cars and
for perforated chair seats. Building paper'
Of the ordinary sort is a coarse paper straw or
waste used for sheeting or lining wooden
houses. 1t was put to good use Immediately
after the Chicago fire, when q western paper
company lined the 10000 houses, 1Gx2O, which
were run up to accommodate the homeless,
with this material, at a cost of IS for each
house.
The non-conducting quality Of paper has
caused q curious development in America of
the paper box industry, SO that the lover Of
oysters nay "talSe home a fry in a JON" to
keep it hot, or a brick of ice cream to keep it
cool. The Chinese and japanese are said to
make paper clothes, and their handlerchiefs
and napkins are well known to us, but Ameri-
can achievements i'll this direction have been
confined chiefly to paper collars, cuffs and
"bosoms," sometimes with q backing of cloth,
which may lie pasted on after making, but
which is %conjoined with the paper at some
mills by reeling the cloth Off parallel with the
web of paper, and pressing the two perma-
nently together between rollers.
The use of paper bags and paper boxes by
shopkeepers has reached enormous proper
lions, and The latest product Of American i'll
genuity is q "self opening bag" completed
automatically from tho web of manila paper
by q machine OH which its owners AVE been
at work for eight years. This is folded fiat us
it comes from the machine, but q single dex-
ferrous flap with the hand opens it into al
absolutely square cornered bag which will
stand upright on the grocer's counter to bt
filled. Paper buckets, barrels and Other
household utensils are either made by join
ing the edges of a flat sheet into a cylinder, OF
by stamping out the form from the paper
pulp, which last was the basis of the papiel
macho of old days, which was nodded sof
into the desired shape, coated with successive
layers of asphalt varnish, and polished down
Paper pulp is also used i'll one process O
stereotyping to make a matrix for the typ
metal--R. II. Bowker in Harper's Magazine
A Passenger Agents Remarks.